“But the truth remains that German taxpayers, as well as those in Finland, the Netherlands and elsewhere, are no worse off at all, and their finance ministries have racked up savings. […]

When giving presentations in Germany, Klaus Regling, the German who heads the euro zone’s permanent bailout fund, often cites two studies that show that Berlin has reaped substantial savings as an unintended consequence of the crisis.

One study, by German insurance giant Allianz, has calculated that Berlin saved 10.2 billion euros in 2010-2012 because of lower borrowing costs, as yields on its 10-year bonds fell from 3.39 percent to 1.18 percent now.

The other study, by Jens Boysen-Hogrefe of the IfW economic institute, suggests that the German federal budget saved 8.6 billion euros in 2011 due to low ECB interest rates and the safe-haven impact of investors putting money into Germany.

Those savings rose to 9.6 billion in 2012 and the safe-haven effect will alone be worth 2 billion in 2013, IfW said. […]

The heart of the misconception about taxpayers losses is the fact that in public discourse, the difference between lending and giving has ceased to exist.”

From the start, this blog was about making a case for Grexit. Widening the scope though, and taking into account recent developments in Europe, from this moment onward it is also about a left-wing exit (“Lexit”) of as many Eurozone member states as possible—consigning this ill-conceived monetary union to the dustbin of history, as UKIP leader Nigel Farage has put it so eloquently.

As strange a bedfellow libertarian/right-populist single-issue party UKIP may be for progressive forces in Europe, they at least have achieved a remarkable victory last Thursday. The outcome of the EU referendum is a shot across the bows of this clunky old tanker—aka “neoliberal superstructure”—called the European Union. (Or maybe it was a torpedo to its side—only time will tell.)

In the days and weeks to come, we will post a lot more about the current state of affairs regarding Lexits. Until then, a walk down memory lane with Nigel Farage lends this endeavour a light-hearted bipartisan tinge: this particular Member of the European Parliament is so right on so many issues that we simply refuse to fall for the platitudes—bordering on character assassination attempts—put forth by mainstream media. We’d rather listen to the man instead: